


Close Quarters

by Jael



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hallucinations, Injury, Stuck in a Small Space, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9880613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael/pseuds/Jael
Summary: Written for the @ficcingcaptaincanary prompt on Tumblr: "Stuck in a small space." Sara's trapped with an injured Leonard after an explosion.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the @ficcingcaptaincanary prompt on Tumblr: "Stuck in a small space." Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta. I own nothing. (Sigh.)
> 
> Set some nebulous time in the last first season, or a random "Destiny never happened" timeline.

"Crook! Come on, Snart. Wake up." Sara draws a ragged breath as she moves her right hand just a little again, wincing at the pain in her arm as it catches on the rough wood of the beam propped over them. "Come on. I know you're in there. Please..."

Her fingers brush against the incongruous softness of his close-cropped hair, but Leonard doesn’t move. She swallows, hard, as they also encounter a warm stickiness that is unmistakably blood, but it's not like that's news. She's been feeling it against her skin since she'd first regained consciousness after the explosion.

And she's pretty sure it's not hers.

Somehow, he'd twigged to the impending blast seconds before she had, rounding on her abruptly and sweeping them both into the shelter of one of the old house's more solid walls. She can still see the determined look on his face in the fraction of a second before she realized what was happening, just before the wave of sound and force and the moment everything went black.

What she can't see is his face _now_ , not with the way her head and shoulders are wedged into the debris. She can just feel him, solid and still and between her and most of the wreckage. His head's cradled into her collarbone, his arms still loosely wrapped around her, and if he was conscious, she'd be giving him grief for the somewhat intimate way they'd managed to get trapped here.

But he's _not_ conscious, though she can feel the steady beat of his heart against her stomach. And he's bleeding; she can feel it on her fingertips and under the palm of her hand, tacky on her costume, and trickling onto her other arm where it's trapped at her side. Very slowly, thank god.

Between Leonard's weight on top of her, the dull ache of her left ankle, and the precariously balanced beams over both of them in this tiny sheltered area in the wreckage, she's not sure how they're going to get out. She's hoping the others will get here soon to help, because otherwise she's going to have to find a way to power through... and this whole house of cards might come crashing down.

If things don't shift and bring it down anyway.

It's uncannily still, now, silent except for the faint shift of the beams. Too far out in the sticks for anyone to call for police and rescue... except for the people who used it as a lair—and planted the explosives—to begin with.

And then, finally... is that the tiniest of moans?

"Snart! Leonard." Sara worries her bottom lip with her teeth, shifting a tiny bit. "Come on. You have to wake up. We need to get out of here so I can give you shit for playing the hero and saving me."

"No," he says indistinctly into her collarbone, lips moving against the battered white leather of her costume, and the rush of relief makes her tone just a trifle sharp.

"Oh, you damn well _bet_ I will..."

Another mutter, and he moves again, just a little. "Dad, no..."

_Oh_.

For moment, they're both silent, Sara as she ponders what to do and Leonard as he lapses back into dreamland.

"Len," she whispers finally, running her fingertips along his hair again. "Ssshhh. It's OK. You're not... damn it. You're hurt, but you're not _there_."

She''ll never, ever tell him – or anyone else – but the next noise might even be a whimper. "No..."

She maneuvers her hand down so that her fingers actually rest against the inch or so of bare skin at the top of his collar, keeps talking. "Somehow you figured out Savage had a bomb planted in here and you, you tackled me right before it went off. We're stuck here at the moment, but we're gonna be OK."

The skin under her fingers shudders as he lets out another pained noise. "I...no... don't..."

She knows he has his demons. He's started alluding to them, even, during their card games, fragments and references concealed by a dry or mock-joking tone. She can tell when he's doing it, dropping in the tiniest fragment of personal information, because he'll never, ever look her in the eye at that point, and the tension in his shoulders will be visible even from several feet away.

"Yeah, _my_ old man sucked as a cop," he told her one day after she'd told him a little about her father. "I think he went into it because he liked to hurt people.” He’d shrugged, looking at his cards. “Imagine his surprise to find out that, on a well-run force, it didn’t take long before he was out on his ass.” A half-shrug. “He had to take it out on his family instead.”

"Shh," she tells him again, now, moving her hand in an almost-caress. "I’m here. You're not _there_."

He stops twitching again after a moment, but she keeps up the motion, reassuring herself as much as him that, in spite of the tackiness under her palm, he’s still warm and breathing.

It feels like hours, but by her best guess, it’s more like 10 minutes before she feels his breathing change and realizes he’s struggling toward true wakefulness. And a minute or two after that, she feels him stir again, muscles tensing just a bit as reason returns.

"Sara." He almost slurs it, but it's definitely her name, and she can't help smiling.

"MmHmm. Right here. Welcome back.”

"Wha..." He moves a little, turning his head... and freezes as, she guesses, he realizes how he’s lying. But she doesn’t say anything and neither does he, although he carefully returns to his original position.

“Careful,” she tells him then. “You’ve only got two inches or so of clearance above you, far as I can tell. We’re wedged in here pretty tight. Can you feel your feet? Full range of motion?”

“I can…wiggle my toes, if that’s what you’re asking.” She can feel him shifting his lower body a little, breathes an inward sigh of relief. “Just have a hell of a headache. How long?”

“I’m not sure how long I was out, but I _think_ it was seconds at most. So at my best guess, we’re just now getting to the point where the team could get back here after the comms went dead. Yours is…?”

“Yeah.”

“I figured. And that’s if everything went well with their mission.” She moves her fingers across the back of his neck again, almost involuntarily, and is surprised to feel him shift into the touch. “How did you know? About the bomb?"

He’s silent, and she gives him a moment, knowing him well enough by now to realize that he’s probably sifting through a variety of factors that include pure instinct. 

“Wasn’t sure it was a bomb,” he says finally. “Just…a trap. It was too quiet, but there were too many telltales that that house wasn’t truly abandoned. Someone wanted us to have enough reason to go in there.” He sighs, and she feels the warm breath against her skin. “Then I heard the _click_. Too late to do more than…”

“Save my life.” She keeps her tone quiet and serious, this time, thoughts of “giving him shit” aside. It’s too important. “Thank you.”

She expects a comment deflecting the thanks. Instead, though, he just says quietly, “Welcome.”

The silence stretches, but it’s not an unwelcome one. She gently rubs the back of his neck, the touch tentative, but not apparently unwelcome even though he’s no longer drowning in dreams. He moves a little, shifting with a sigh, and she can feels his arms tighten on either side of her.

“So,” he says finally, “what are we going to do if they don’t…”

The unmistakable sound of the jump ship breaks into his words, and they both breathe a sigh of relief even as Sara, a trifle giddy, giggles at the timing.

“Shit!” Jax’s voice, loud after the relative silence, is still distant but clearly audible a few minutes later. “What happened? Do you think they’re…?! Guys, can you hear us?”

Sara starts to drag in a breath to respond, but then: "Snart!" A new voice booms out, nearly on top of them. "Sara! Where the hell are you?"

"Mick!" She can't quite get enough air in her lungs to really yell, but she does the best she can. "Jax! Here!" Then, as she can finally see them shifting wreckage away, "Careful! Snart's hurt."

"We're coming, Blondie!" A few minutes later, a few beams shift and she can see Mick's concerned eyes peering down at them. After a moment's consideration, he actually grunts in amusement.

"Hey, Boss. Blondie," he tells them, "getting pretty cozy, ain't you?

The words get a string of muttering profanity from Snart, who shifts as though trying to rise on his own, but Mick only laughs, carefully moving one beam, then another out of the way, joined by Jax, who slithers down into the sheltered area as soon as there’s room. He helps to support the framework from below as the other man continues to shift things.

“What the hell happened?” Jax asks them worriedly. “The comms went dead and we got back as soon as we could. It looks like a bomb went off here.”

“Pretty much what happened, kid.” With a grunt of pain, Leonard moves to the side as more space opens up. Sara immediately starts to rise, only to think better of it as her head swims and pretty much everything from head to toe gives a pang of protest.

As Jax moves to her side and gently helps her sit up, she gets her first good look at Snart since the bomb went off. He’s propped himself against a beam, covered in dust…well, so is she… and blood’s crusted across his forehead and his left cheekbone from a nasty-looking—but probably not too dangerous—gash on his temple.

“You look like hell,” she tells him cheerfully, so pleased to finally be able to see him that she can’t help grinning. And he’s grinning—an actual grin, not a smirk--back at her.

“I bled all over your outfit,” he tells her nonchalantly. “Sorry.”

“I should make you do my laundry, Crook.”

“Hey, _I_ saved your life, Assassin…”

“Can you two can the flirting for five minutes so we can figure out how to get you back to the ship?” Mick, peering down at them, shakes his head. “I’m going to move the jump ship closer and try to use it to pull some of this crap away so you can get out. How the hell you were lucky enough to end up in the one place that didn’t get annihilated by hundreds of pounds of half-rotten timber and 1950s siding, I’ll never know. Jax, gimme a hand…”

Jax climbs out and, arguing with Mick over the best way to get their two battered teammates the rest of the way out of the wreckage, heads back to the ship. Sara, listening, shakes her head, then looks back at Leonard, who’s closed his eyes and leaned back against a beam.

As if he feels her eyes on him, he opens his own and regards her.

"Next time we're in quarters that close, I hope I'm a little more conscious," is all he says, the gleam in his eyes and that familiar smirk reassuring her. She grins back at him.

"You keep dreaming, Crook," she says as she reaches out and lets her fingers brush his hand. "You keep dreaming."


End file.
